Forum proposals and questions

[Dean]

Quite alright. If you don't ask you don't get anywhere after all

[Arch-Mage Matt]

With all due respect, there are hundreds of mods that fixes all kind of bugs and errors... the UOP is just the BIG one. Could you be more specific with what fixes you actually made?

[Dean]

Before there is a reply to that...could you discuss these things in another thread please? this is for forum proposals after all and not discussions on mod fixes and wiki edits.

[BFG]

At Dean's request, I have added a new thread to continue this discussion. I'll copy the relevant posts over momentarily.

[Syn]

Alright, here’s my first “official” post. Being new to the site, I certainly don’t want to get off on the wrong foot or step on any toes, but I have both a request and suggestion for the site.

I’m double posting this in both the “suggestion box” and “example” threads to illustrate my point and I’ll apologize in advance for the “wall of text”.

As I said in my intro, I’ve played Morrowind on Xbox console, but Oblivion on PC. I respect the “mod” community, but have gravitated away from it in preference to what I consider a more “pure” gaming experience of console play for my own personal reasons.

Mainly, “playability”. I was heavy into “mods” on another game back in my PC gaming days, as were all the other players. As it turned out, certain “mods” became almost prerequisite requirements if you wanted to play the game “for real” with other “hardcore” online gamers.

Frankly, it got to the point of being ridiculous with the “power creep” the unofficial “mods” that were being “adopted” became prevalent in that gaming community to the point I got so disgusted I simply “retired” and walked away from it.

I tried revisiting the “mods” with Oblivion on my PC, but was quickly reminded of why I didn’t care to use them. They simply tended to cause more bugs, conflicts and errors than they seemed to fix.

The game was entirely enjoyable and playable without them or all the “tweaking” required to get them to “play nice” with my particular hardware, OS and system build, which is why I doubt “mods” will ever become fully “universal”, simply because the systems they’re running on aren’t “universal”.

Hence my preference for the simplicity of console gaming, the hardware is the same, and so is the software. As a matter of fact, the only “mod” I kept for Oblivion was the “Wryebash” one that allowed me to edit my spell lists and delete spells, which was a major oversight on the part of the developers in my book.

This brings me to the point of my current rant, and hopefully a solution and suggestion to help ease the pain and suffering of any others out there like me like me. I joined this site and promptly subscribed to the “Morrowind” thread for email updates.

The first one I receive is from the “sample” thread about customizing the soundtrack. Preferring my console for Morrowind, I have little interest in this thread and topic. Technically, isn’t this “modding”?

So here’s my suggestion, move this to the “Morrowind Mods” thread and rename the “Oblivion”, “Oblivion Mods”, “Morrowind” and “Morrowind Mods” threads to “Oblivion Console”, “Oblivion PC”, Morrowind Console” and “Morrowind PC”, respectively.

This would easily allow forum users to select and subscribe to both their preferred games and platforms, respectively, and cut down on the email and inbox clutter to those topics of actual interest?

[Spiney]

I don't think that would be needed as the platform people play on is on their profile (as on yours). Also one merely has to point out in their thread what platform their on to give those who are replying the right direction.

I think it would also over-complicate the forum folders. Also larger forums like the Nexus forums don't do this either.

It is unfortunate that most Morrowind players are on PC, but even with the lack of console players, it doesn't stop you from making a thread.

[Dean]

Syn, I think that would cause lot of unneeded forum changes, there do happen to be a lot of PC users, yes, but most of that is to do with the fact that TES has always been a PC game so you have a lot of older players who aren't keen on consoles.
But this doesn't matter, there are still many console players who simply ignore the mod threads and join in with the other ones.

There is no harm in opening your own thread to discuss whatever you want(within reason) so feel free to do so if that is your wish, I would welcome more talk about Morrowind as it is my preferred game but it is getting rather old now and it is the new members and/or players that tend to bring the life back into.

As for the email thing... you can turn that off can't you? I'm not sure as I don't really check my emails, facebook and all, but if you can wouldn't it be simpler to just check on the site to see if the threads you like are still running? Morrowind sections don't get nearly as much activity as the Oblivion ones these days so it wouldn't take long to go through them, at all. There is maybe one or two new threads a day in those sections and your not going to click on 'Morrowind Mods' if you can't use them anyway(or not like them at all in your case).

[Red Guardian]

I don't want to create a new thread for this but I'm having problems with the main site. The pictures won't load. It doesn't matter what picture. They just can't load. All of them. What the Hell?

[I_am_one]

Meaning the fact this is also a 'questions' thread, I'll just post my simple comment here, instead of making what would be a short thread.

With the new Skyrim section of the forums, do all posts there count towards a users post count, or not, meaning the fact Skyrim isn't released yet? Just curious. Thanks.

[Dean]

They do indeed count towards post count. I think that even disabling that for a short time would still mean all the posts get added up when it is reactivated, so I don't know if we could do anything about stopping that.

Good question though, I had to check that out earlier to.

[I_am_one]

Cool, thanks for the quick answer.
Maybe my post count will actually increase a bit now...Without spamming, of course...
<.<
>.>

[Argonanza]

What this site really needs is a switchy eyes-smiley!

[Andere]

@Syn: The mod issue is a rather difficult one, and also related to the cheat issue. You can put 123 with a mod, and it's not considered cheating, but if you put 123 some other way, even with the Construction Set... it may be considered as cheating. Only Heaven knows, eh?

The sad part with mods is, they tend to promise a lot, but provide less or even only problems. I've been working on an "official recommended mods" list, but it remains to see if one is achieved. This far, and further, mods are installed and tried by user's responsibility. With the first mod I ever installed, and it wasn't a TES game, I learned that rule --- the way the story goes, nothing more about that.

Organizing material / data is quite a task. Your proposal is hardly going to happen, because various platforms share a great deal of data and thus, dividing everything according to platform would cause multiple data and, at the same time, common data for platforms missing in some platform, as there was no one there to share it. Say, you have a problem in PC, it gets solved, and there's nothing particularly PC about it... people reading PlayStation pages will miss the whole thing.

I consider it is better to have some slight misunderstandings, like I always forget to check the platform when answering a question... and all the rest of our population must point out, "Hey Guy! He's got an XBox...", than splitting and dividing endlessly, leading to tons of topics as-it-seems specifically oriented, but with a whole lot of people left outside the support.

I hope I haven't repeated the repeated? At least I know, I haven't beaten the beaten, as no one was beaten in the first place. BUT IT IS very nice to read suggestions, and I do support you to continue with them, "and you have my permission to be critical, even in my direction" - hah.

[Ashe]

I find that using a post rating feature can help with forum management. My network is small (300 users) and enjoys a mature membership (work colleagues). Has its use in UESP been discussed? I found a link for such a mod for phpbb on the org site.

[Dean]

I find that using a post rating feature can help with forum management. My network is small (300 users) and enjoys a mature membership (work colleagues). Has its use in UESP been discussed? I found a link for such a mod for phpbb on the org site.

Okay now I will answer the question after the post merging.

This is a lot like facebook the whole 'rate the post' thing and to be honest I don't think it is that great of a feature. Do communities really need this? if you read the forums it is easy to see who gives out a lot of help, and I don't like the fact that some members may get rated down on there posts which are just as good as others. As a community we work together to be treated as equals and have an understanding that all our opinions have the same worth.

Giving people ratings on others opinions could be a disaster and could lead to some serious problems. It could create an elitism which is something we want to avoid at the end of the day. What does post rating really accomplish? I ask this as a serious question because I can't really think of much else then it will boost someone's ego a lot having a high rating, while giving a lower rated member crushed self-esteem.

[Ashe]

You can use a rating to express a degree of enthusiasm or agreement with a post. It cuts down on some clutter. If someone has something more to say than "I like that idea," they can still write a reply. I've also used it to vote on items once topic discussion is complete. Knowing that x% of viewers found a certain post to be helpful might be nice, though I haven't had a need for that yet, though I do work on my department user manual....hmmm. But I digress.

To return to topic, I'm very happy to see that you want to encourage people to make contributions without fear of being smacked. While Admins can generally control these features, your concerns about abuse are legitimate. As I say, my experience with forums is, hmm, rather limited, apparently. (I think I broke my comma key. Where is Hemingway when you need him?)

Thanks so much for your thoughtful reply and have fun in the forums.

[evenratman]

Just a question... do PMs still get sent if you delete them while they are in your outbox?

[KalleFlaxx]

Just a question... do PMs still get sent if you delete them while they are in your outbox?

Apparently not... >.>

[Veck]

Just a question... do PMs still get sent if you delete them while they are in your outbox?

The adressee will receive a PM from you stating that the message you sent them was deleted before they could read it.

[Spiney]

While we're on the subject of PM's. Could we increase or inbox size from fifty to say, one hundred? Mine's always filling up and I keep finding myself deleting previous messages just to read new ones.

Just to make things less of a hassle.

[Veck]

While we're on the subject of PM's. Could we increase or inbox size from fifty to say, one hundred? Mine's always filling up and I keep finding myself deleting previous messages just to read new ones.

Same. But you can always se. your preferences to delete the oldest message in your inbox when a new one arrives. Increasing it to 100 is just going to stall the inevitable.

[Dean]

Yes...use to be very annoying that. I'll mention it to Ratwar next time I talk to him, I see no reason why it should be so low in this day and age anyway.

Vecky makes a point though, unless of course your storing PM's for a specific reason.

[Spiney]

Vecky makes a point though, unless of course your storing PM's for a specific reason.

Yes, I have a few I'd rather not loose.

[KalleFlaxx]

I agree with Spiney. I delete lots of messages too, and I have some conversations I want to save, but eventually I won't be able to accept new messages. So I think 100 would suffice. Although, it wouldn't hurt with even more, but 100 will be enough.

[The Tom]

How about doing what I do and create an 'overspill' folder for your new messages to filter into as they come in?